Category: News

Congratulations are in order for our pupils who have won parts in Bradfield School‘s production of Bugsy Malone!

Well done to Lucy Holcroft, Eleanor Jackson and Renée Warren who will be performing in April, we’re always glad to hear of what you get up to outside of class! Eleanor will be playing Bugsy’s romantic interest, Blousey, while Lucy will be playing the part of Fizzy.

Last weekend, 7 of our Berry Babes enjoyed a 2-day workshop with industry professionals at the Zoe Birkett Academy in Hartlepool. Isabel Adshead, Helin Arslan, Abigail Bridger, Megan Bridger, Niamh Thompson, Evie Wright and Laylah Xaba, fresh from their run in Rotherham Civic’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves took part in singing, dancing and acting classes which were then transformed into a performance for parents at the end of the weekend.

Zoe Birkett, (of Pop Idol fame) who starred as Snow White herself in Shone Productions’ Christmas favourite, taught the singing class herself, while the dance class was taught by Christabelle Field, choreographer for Sky 1’s Got to Dance, and the acting class was led by Game of Thrones’ Junade Khan.

The girls were split into age groups and performed a scene from Men in Black, complete with singing, dancing, and American accents!

Isabelle & Jack will be taking up 2 of the 3 lead parts in Singin’ in the Rain.

Hot on the heels of their last successful production, Jack and the Beanstalk, our friends at the Manor Operatic Society are pulling out all the stops for their next show, Singin’ in the Rain, and we can’t help but be pleased with their taste in leading actors.

A huge congratulations to Isabelle Sykes who has won the part of Kathy Selden, the tap-dancing love interest of Don Lockwood, and another well done to Jack Skelton, who will be assuming the role of Cosmo Brown, Don’s lovable and goofy best friend.

We’ll also be pleased to see more Berry Babes taking roles in the show, with Conner Povey, Ewan Revill, Megan Sayles & Gabriel Sharrock soon to be acting, singing and dancing their hearts out in this classic musical.

A very happy birthday to our gorgeous Rebecca Hanneman who becomes an adult today!

Becky joined us over 10 years ago, taking part in her first show in 2006, A Kinda Magic, experiencing the first of many quick costume changes with Miss Lisa! The dance festival roller coaster began at age 8 for Rebecca when she had varied success; falling first on her bum with her Ballet solo but then achieving 4th place with her Modern.

Rebecca is no stranger to Sheffield Theatres, playing Louisa in the Sound of Music in 2012, and then joining the dance troupe of Kes in 2014. This last performance was pretty traumatic and Becky’s trooper spirit came through as she was rushed to hospital to have her appendix removed a week before opening night. She still made it though!

In 2014 she won the South Yorkshire Tap Championship and in 2015 and 2016 she appeared in the IDTA’s prestigious Miss Dance of Great Britain competition. She has already won her place in 2017’s Miss Dance.

Over the years she has secured many great exam results and was first nominated to compete in the IDTA Theatre Dance Awards in 2012 with Modern Jazz. Since then she has been nominated many times, most recently in 2016 she was nominated for Advanced 1 Modern Jazz and Intermediate Tap, the latter for which she was awarded a Special Commendation.

Rebecca had her first professional job only a month ago, appearing as a magical doll for Cbeebies’ Nutcracker festival!

We hope you have a wonderful day and we cannot wait to see what your future holds.

Congratulations to Eleanor Jackson who has been invited to join the Elite team at Stagebox, Leeds. Hundreds attended a rigorous and competitive audition at the Royal Northern Ballet where she was selected along with just a handful of children. Eleanor will be spending up to 5 weeks of her school holidays taking part in intensive musical theatre workshops led by leading industry professionals.

In addition to the workshops, Eleanor can look forward to taking part in professional musical theatre videos, which showcase Elite Teams to hundreds of thousands online. Training also includes vocal recording in a professional studio and “on location” shoots throughout the year.

We look forward to see the results of Eleanor’s first workshop in April 2017!

Well we have been busy! Lots of festive fundraising and a fabulous Christmas Concert to finish off a wonderful term.

IDTA Theatre Awards, Here We ComeWe were delighted to announce that following our November exam sessions, 9 pupils have been selected to perform at the IDTA’s Theatre Awards in 2017 in Manchester. This competition is drawn from the best syllabus exam performances across the country, and it is considered a great honour to be asked to dance. Many pupils have been nominated for more than one category, and they are as follows:

Well done to all pupils who took exams, as usual, we have maintained our 100% pass rate.

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Fundraising Frenzy
Our Fundraising Committee have well and truly done it again this term. Carol singing, festive fayres and a fantastically organised Christmas Concert. This year we added another performance due to popular demand! Many thanks to everyone who came to support the school and to those who donated extra to our extremely cute collectors.

Photos from the Concert are available at our Facebook page, please click here. A huge well done to all the teachers for putting together our festive favourite in a short space of time, we hope you all now feel suitably Christmassy.

We also had a sighting of a certain someone supposedly in “retirement” – but it turns out we can’t keep her away.

Thanks again to all for supporting our marvellous dance school, and we look forward to seeing you in the new year. Classes begin Saturday 7th January 2017.

Urgent call to all the (Mary) Berry Babes, mums, aunties, nans (or dads!) for cake donations for our Christmas Fayre this Saturday! We would greatly appreciate anyone who can bake some treats (cakes or buns) for sale to bring them from 9.30am onwards till 11 o’clock when the Fayre opens. For anyone who can’t bring something in the morning we will still appreciate stock replenishment throughout the day.